I read this post about a Microsoft program manager who, working from home and missing the social vibe of regular offices, decided to create a setup which would allow him to work with a colleague as if they were there alongside each other.
Doing a little further digging, I discovered one of the companies at the forefront of this technology is Cisco with their product range, Cisco TelePresence. First introduced in 2006, the technology provides high-definition 1080p video, spatial audio and a setup designed to link two separate rooms so they look like a single location.
Here are some examples of the technology, pretty remarkable stuff. (On a side note, make sure you check out CNN’s live hologram during the Obama Inauguration if you haven’t seen it yet.)
Cisco Telepresence Live Event
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcfNC_x0VvE
HP has also taken steps into the market place with their product range HP Halo, a high-end telepresence application. As with most new technology, particularly for the enterprise, the costs of such devices are extraordinarily expensive but in time let’s hope small and big businesses alike will be able to afford them.
HP Halo
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVk6dcFadIY
Since I installed IE 8, I can’t see any of the videos/images on your site, which is v frustrating…
This is simply amazing. How do they do it?!!!
You work for cisco, don’t you?
Amazing! And we thought it’s only possible in the movies.
LOL, I wish!
This is oldand not the best example of the technology. You can now do multisite telepresence with Cisco but it is not able to inter-operate with other vendors kit yet (later in the year it will)Tandberg and Polycom also provide multisite but both of these solutions can be fully integrated into exsisting VC rooms and even Microsoft OCS and Cisco UCM. They can also interoperate with other VC and TP vendors (except Cisco). If you look for Tandberg T3 on YouTube and also Polycom RPX you will see an even better example.
What is the deal with this red “Tips, News & Feedback” tab on the top left? ANNOYING. At least let me opt out of seeing it.
Telepresence has been out for a while now, and the economic situation has recently pushed a lot of large corporations to install rooms in their major branch offices to reduce travel costs. The ‘hologram’ video above was from about a year ago.
HP Halo and Cisco Telepresence are similar, but Halo requires that you use HP’s specific network setup to work right, greatly lowering the potential interoperability for business to business traffic. I think in the long run Telepresence will win out over Halo
2006 called, it wants it’s flash and dazzle back.
HD video conf won’t be truly interesting until you can have it anywhere, have it dirt cheap, and run it over modest bandwidth. It’s getting there, but for now these systems look like a good companion to a giant ERP implementation and some EAI written in C.
Lightweight, nimble, quick, cheap, and easy. Call me when it’s ready.
Cisco has Telepresence but they lack in QoS. The only company in the world today that really solved the problem is the swedish company “Net Insight”.
The big difference between the solutions is that Cisco Need large amount of overhead bandwidth to garantee quality. While Net Insight DTM priorities the bandwidth on a lower level in the OSI model.
Check för your self: http://www.ibc-tvnews.com/cgi-bin/video_play.cgi?id=619
The telepresence is performed over the public internet with a 2.4 Gb/s connection.
Beat that Cisco!!!
By the way – guess wich company that delivers the infrastructure to the olympics in Beijing and to USAs largest sport broadcast company! And wins 9 out of 10 DTT infrastructure projects in the world today :)
This guy should stay in India if he likes it so much. Thanks, Cisco, for taking US dollars and investing them in India. Another parasite corporation.
These CEO’s are the most worthless bunch of people.
Wow. Ideas and innovations like these is what’s gonna boost the economy and create jobs.
I tried Cisco telepresence & HP Halo in real conditions (no demo). Cisco system a year ago, wasn’t working well. 6 month ago i tried HP Halo between Paris & London. It was really impressive.
please someone tell him it’s STAR TREK not TRAK. :) Yah yah really impressive stuff until you see what’s required to do it. If anyone has 250k to spare… easy to get tot he billion then eh ;)
Really? Bloody hell..No images or video at all?
use FF Firefox, and you will never face any of that stupid problems anymore